I want to purchase the droid, but I have a few ?'s

Im interested in purchasing this phone and have read/watched a lot of reviews and it is definitely the phone I'd like to go with. But I have a couple of questions, while researching the droid I've come across a few articles/videos about "rooting" the phone. Now, I have no idea what that entails or really even what it means. But I did get some information saying that if I root it, it is possible to acquire free internet and avoid the extra $30 on my monthly bill. I also came across information that their is an app for free sms texting. So I suppose my overall question is, should I skip the unlimited internet and texts when I purchase the phone from verizon? Also, how difficult is it to "root" your phone? Does it void the warranty? Is there some sort of fail safe (I read something about backing files up...)? And is there some sort of newb friendly guide...? Any help is appreciated, I apologize if I posted this in the wrong forum.

'Rooting' gives you more access to the OS on the phone. This can be done to do simple things like changing some basic things that you can't normally change - like the boot animation and things like that.

You CAN fsck things up easily if you don't know what you're doing.

But you do not NEED to root your phone for it to be useful. I'd liken it to jailbreaking an iPhone.

Would "rooting" allow me to download "roms" like, old school video games and such? Or is that possible to do so without hacking into my phone? I'm just trying to get a handle on what the phone is capable of. Im not very tech savy, so excuse my ignorance.

To my knowledge, such roms are not yet available, as the Droid is quite new. But if history is an indicator, given the sheer popularity of the phone, and the geek brigade, it's only a matter of time. Developers follow the money, and most people, Android wise, are buying the Droid. ..... Likewise, hacking may not be required to do what you want. The apps are coming fast and furious, more than doubling (per mainstream press reports of late) since news of "the Droid cometh". Come on and join us, the water's fine!

To my knowledge, such roms are not yet available, as the Droid is quite new. But if history is an indicator, given the sheer popularity of the phone, and the geek brigade, it's only a matter of time. Developers follow the money, and most people, Android wise, are buying the Droid. ..... Likewise, hacking may not be required to do what you want. The apps are coming fast and furious, more than doubling (per mainstream press reports of late) since news of "the Droid cometh". Come on and join us, the water's fine!

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He is referring to ROMS for emulators like NES.

You can access emulators without having a rooted droid. There are emulators in the marketplace and you just need to download the actual ROMS on the computer, or through a website on while on the droid.

There are emulators available already that allow you to play roms however acquired. Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, GBA. You don't need to root your phone to install these.

The phone is capable of a great deal of things, it's up to the wonderful developers to unleash its potential. There are some very good free and not free (but usually cheap) apps that are available for download for it.

Though there're probably some specific things that you can accomplish only by rooting, the Droid is a much more open platform than the iPhone so there's not as much of a reason to root/jailbreak it in my opinion. Root has only been accomplished about a week ago though so maybe there will be some cool possibilities in the future.

But I think that is an enhancement rather than "free texting" as I thought.

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It's free texting but the text will go to your google voice account and be sent using your google voice number.

How it works is you setup google voice, install the google voice app on your phone and then you can send and receive texts to/from any number without using verizon's texting and thus not being charged.

I tried this out for a while but there are some drawbacks that are too minute to explain. Just try it and see if you like it or not. You can always add a texting plan later if you want to go the verizon route.

If you use google voice, you'll also have the ability to use visual voicemail and voicemail transcription service so that you also receive voicemails as e-mails. I'd say try it all out and see if it's your cup of tea or not.

When you first get a Droid, you'll be testing a bunch of apps and ways to do things, you have a lot of choices.

But I think that is an enhancement rather than "free texting" as I thought.

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Yes, Handcent is just a better app for texting. Google Voice, on the other hand, allows you to send unlimited texts for free. The only "catch" is you need to get a google voice phone number and use that for texting. That's not so bad considering all the sweet features that come with it: Google Voice

Just advice, if you don't know what root permission is, you probably should either learn more about it, or avoid it. If you don't know what you're doing, you can turn your fancy phone into a fancy paperweight. You can still do that even if you know what you're doing. Not trying to scare you, just informing.

So far, there are only a few things that you can safely do with root. Give it a while before someone releases a stable custom ROM.

As others pointed out, you're referring to emulators, which are available in the market.

You may be confusing free internet with tethering. You'll still be paying for it, you'll just be using your phone in a way VZW doesn't want you to, since they charge for tethering.

There are a couple ways to avoid SMS via VZW. There are some VOIP apps, and Google Voice is another option. I don't text out of my GV number since I don't really need to, and most of my friends don't have my GV number anyway. I just use it for work, and to give out so I can block people I don't want calling me.

The data plan is pretty essential, I've found. So if you can afford it, get it, although I'm not even sure it's optional.